Page 756 : GERMAN EMPIRE — GERMAN EMPIRE
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10,000 Arabs, Goanese, Hindus and Syrians near the coast, and 2,500 Europeans, three fifths of them Germans. The country produces almost every tropical fruit, cacao, coffee, cinchona, fibers, sugar, tea, rubber, tobacco, vanilla, maize. Coal, copper, gold, iron, lead, mica, precious stones and salt have been found, garnets in large quantity; and forests of mangrove, palm and tamarind abound on the coast, while acacias, cotton-trees and sycamores cover the higher areas. The government forests extend over more than 200,000 acres, and the government also operates experiment-stations for stock breeding and tropical culture. The natives in the more settled regions pursue agriculture, some of them cultivating large banana-plantations, and near the coast there are many German estates. Wide, well-kept roads, on some of which rest-houses and supplies are provided, traverse the entire country. From Tanga on the coast a railroad runs to Karagwe (54 miles), from Dar-es-Salaam another to Kingani (50 miles), while the first has a branch (28 miles) to Mombo and the second is to be prolonged to Mrogoro (130 miles). There is extensive transportation along the coast and on the great lakes by means of government-steamers. Few of the seaports are available for ocean ships. Telegraphs connect the towns on the coast with one another, with Ujiji (where connection is made with the line from Cape Town to Cairo) and with Zanzibar. Dar-es-Salaam, the capital, has 25,000 people, but Tabora, two thirds of the way from the ocean to the lakes, is the largest city (pop. 40,000), while Ujiji on the Tanganyika comes third (15,000). The country is administered by an imperial governor, and has 17 government-schools with 3,265 pupils and several hundred mission-schools with 17,000 scholars. The chief imports are cottons, rice, provisions, hardware and iron; the principal exports, rubber, copra, ivory, vegetable fibers and insect-wax.
German Empire, a federation of 25 states, with one imperial province (the reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine), occupying the central portions of Europe. It has an area of 208,780 square miles or about one sixteenth of that of all Europe, — about four fifths of that of Texas. The total frontier line measures 4,570 miles.
Surface. The central and southern parts of the country are occupied by a range of high tableland, broken by mountain ranges and groups, such as the Harz in the north, the Taunus in the middle and the Black Forest and Bavarian Alps further south. The Zugspitz in Bavaria, the highest peak in Germany, is 9,665 feet in height; the Vosges reach 4,700 feet; the Felberg in the Black Forest 4,903; and the famous Brocken 3,740. From the center of the empire north to the German Ocean stretches a vast, sandy plain, broken only by two terrace-like elevations, with an average height of about 600 feet, one near the coast of the Baltic and the other running from Silesia into Hannover.
Drainage and Canals. The country is divided into three drainage-basins. The Danube, with its tributaries, drains the greater part of Bavaria into the Black Sea. But far the greater part of the country has a northern slope. The main streams emptying into the North Sea are the Rhine, the Weser and the Elbe, with their branches. Into the Baltic flow the Oder, the Vistula, the Memel and the Pregel. Numerous canals also connect the great river-systems. The chief are Ludwig’s Canal (110 miles long) in Bavaria, which, by uniting the Danube and the Main, connects the Black Sea and the German Ocean; the Finow Canal (40 miles) in Brandenburg; the Kiel and Eider Canal (21 miles), uniting the Baltic with the German Ocean. The North Sea and Baltic Canal (the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal) is 61 miles in length from the mouth of the Elbe to Kiel, and is designed mainly for war-ships. It was opened for traffic in June, 1895. The cost of construction was close upon $40,000,000. The mileage of the canals and inland waterways of Germany is 8,436 miles. There are many small lakes; and swamp-lands and marshes are abundant.
Natural Resources. The mineral products are rich and varied, and furnish one of the chief industries. The chief mining and smelting districts are in Silesia, on the lower Rhine, in the upper Harz and in Saxony. Alsace and Lorraine contain a great part of, perhaps, the largest iron-deposit in Europe. Silesia has the largest coal-field in Europe, and Prussia yields nearly half of all the zinc annually produced in the world. The country is rich in clays of all kinds, and the porcelain of Meissen, the pottery of Thuringia and the glass of Silesia and Bavaria are celebrated. The mineral springs have been famous from the earliest ages.
Forests and Game. Fir, beech, pine and oak are the chief forest-products. Small game of all kinds abounds in the forests, and a few wild boars and wolves are still found. The chamois, red deer, wild goat, fox and marten find shelter in the Bavarian Alps. In all the plains of the north storks, wild geese and ducks are abundant. Carp, salmon, trout and eels are widely distributed, and the oyster, herring and cod-fisheries form important branches of commerce.
Agriculture. About 49 per cent. of the entire area of the empire is given up to plowed land, garden-land and vineyards, and about 26 per cent, is in woods and forests. All the ordinary grains are grown in the north; the vine is brought to great perfection further south; the hops of
